Microsoft will make the Surface Book available to pre-order in the UK on Tuesday, Jan. 5. Customers in Austria, Australia, France, Germany, China, Switzerland and New Zealand will also be able to snag Microsoft’s new flagship laptop early. The Surface Book will also be available in Japan ‘soon,’ according to the Windows blog. Reserve your device by clicking on this link after midnight. Prices start at £1,229 ($1499).
The cheapest option has 128GB storage, a Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM. From there prices start to increase, exceeding $2,500 for the most powerful model.
$1499: 128GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB
$1699: 256GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB
$1899: 256GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB / NVIDIA GPU
$2099: 256GB / Core Intel i7 - 8GB / NVIDIA GPU
$2699: 512GB / Core Intel i7 - 16GB / NVIDIA GPU
The Surface Book has a 13.5-inch touch screen and 3000x2000 resolution. The display detaches from the keyboard and is compatible with the Surface Pen. The casing sports two USB 3 ports, one full SD slot, and has a Mini DisplayPort connector. The hybrid tablet has an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP front. Microsoft boats the battery lasts half a day.
The Surface Book launched in the U.S. in October and has received rave reviews. Microsoft is sitting pretty as king of productivity hybrids right now. Both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book impress customers who want Windows 10 and laptop capabilities in portable tablet form. However with that being said, Microsoft new surface line was shipped with a host of issues, some of which have not yet been resolved.
The most serious complaint has been battery life. Some users who don’t use their Surface device all the time aren’t heavily affected. However, if you need that solid 12 hours every day, the unfixed issue could be an inconvenience. Microsoft has admitted the laptop fails to sleep, hibernate and preserve power the way it should.
A Microsoft rep who identified as ‘Joe’ in a December Microsoft forum suggested the company may have known about the problem before the device was released.
"We couldn’t do it at RTM for a variety of reasons, power management is a very hard computer science problem to solve,” said the source. Joe added that the issue would be solved “sometime soon in the new year.”
A Reddit thread titled “Anyone NOT having issues with their Surface Book” proves these issues are not affecting hardware in every device. However, a quick look at the Surface forums show this is indeed a real problem. Many unhappy customers have returned their new Microsoft Surface device in favor of other, much cheaper, Windows 10 hybrids. For a Windows laptop that costs $2,500, you should be getting your money’s worth. While the iPad Pro or 13-inch MacBook Pro may not have the OS or functionality you’re looking for, Apple’s devices are still half the price.
